If you like cabernet sauvignon, then try
If you like Bordeaux cabernet and cabernet blends…
Cabernet sauvignon performs brilliantly in varietal wines as well as in blends, most famously in Bordeaux where it partners with merlot. Drinkers of cab-dominant Bordeaux blends from the Médoc love them for their fine and firm structure, cassis and plum flavours, and complex notes of cedar, cigar box, graphite and more. In which case, they really must sample some of Tuscany’s finest sangioveses. Sangiovese tends more towards red fruit than black, but judiciously oaked examples can have a similar structure to red bordeaux, and a fresh tobacco aroma that should appeal.
Then there’s Rioja – the great northern Spanish wine region famous for its ripe and fruity, usually oak-aged reds. They’re made from tempranillo, sometimes blended with garnacha. Tempranillo has a strawberry rather than cassis flavour and the oak is often more sweet and vanilla-tinged, especially if American barrels have been used, but I know many wine lovers who appreciate both premium red bordeaux and top rioja reservas and gran reservas. If you like ripe, rounded fruit and oaky tannins, chances are you’ll divide your time between these two great wine regions, which aren’t so far away from each other, after all. Just remember that premium bordeaux is released young for you to age it, while rioja is aged at the bodega and released ready to drink.
And finally, don’t miss the delights of Douro table reds from northern Portugal. Unfortified red wines from ‘port country’ have become seriously impressive over the past 20 years and the blend of indigenous port grapes that make them, led by the sturdy and high-quality touriga nacional grape, deliver a rich and firm red, usually oak-aged, that echoes some of French cabernet’s qualities.
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